Dance With The Devil
by FlashyDwarf
Summary: A Merle D/OC revenge story. Where did Merle go after Atlanta, and did his abandonment have anything to do with the horrible things that keep happening to the group? What if someone is manipulating everyone from behind the scenes?
1. Prologue

**Note: Hello readers!**

**Enter disclaimery stuff here, I don't own TWD and I don't own the characters yada yada**

**I'm writing this to experiment with Merle Dixon. He's a character that kind of confused me all this time. I've been writing Caryl for a while and the mushiness has been boring me a little so I won't be back to that for a while. Anyway, this is my first time writing an OC and I don't have anyone to read this through for me before I post, so be gentle. This is just a short snippet prologue, but more will follow soon!  
**

**Enjoy!**

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**Prologue**

_'This is not a story with a happy ending. It is not intended to lull one to sleep at night. If you read this, be prepared, because the things we have done and the things we intend to do are evil. I never wanted to be a 'baddie' but there are no heroes in this world, only those with the power to survive and those who end up dead. I don't for one minute think that we will live for long, but I'm happy taking comfort in the little things for now. We're off to the nearest town, to arm ourselves. I only met him a few hours ago, already I've let my inhibitions go and I will follow him, he's safe to be around._  
_There are stories from the point of view of good guys- the ones who fight evil and keep their morale's even in the face of adversity but this is not one of them. This is the story of how we made the lives of a group of people who have done nothing wrong to me, a living hell._

_The Diary of Sally Houton. Day One.'_

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The philosophy which Sally had stuck to since the troubles began, was that you could trust Walkers. They stumbled, ate, chased, growled and walked endlessly. That was about the extent of their abilities. But survivors were different. The living would cheat, steal, kill, lie, plot and scheme, and it was that which frightened her. The Walkers were nothing more than the physical manifestation of death, but humans were a whole lot worse.

The troubles had started for her like a flash of torchlight in the dark, it happened so fast. The entire prison had been isolated, they were neither exposed to the outside horrors nor were they given weapons or allowed to defend themselves, so when everything went to hell most were swept under, completely clueless. One guard had stumbled in late one afternoon and sunk his teeth into the face of another. With one chilling scream the shit had hit the fan. The doors were thrown open as guard and prisoner alike attempted to flood out into the streets and away from this fresh hell, but they merely stumbled from one hellish scene into the rest of the world which was hastily becoming the devil's playground.

A small band of prisoners had busted out of their locked cells and banded together with some remaining guards, putting the prison into lockdown. Each of them killed and looted their fair share of undead as they attempted to make the prison safe, many carrying nightsticks and pistols which quickly came in handy. It took a while for them to understand and put in place the 'blow to the head' rule as they watched their fellow survivors pulverize the bodies of the Walkers until their shattered corpses dragged themselves along the ground like some freakish moving carpet. The living would thump his boot into the arms, shoulders, legs but always the creatures kept coming, undeterred by shattered bones or bleeding stumps where limbs should be. Even in this state, often the creatures were able to sink their teeth into their assailant and they too would have to be 'put down'. It took a lot of bloodshed and loss of life to secure the prison, but in the end they were safe.

Sally had been visiting her boyfriend, trying to find a way to get the guards to let him evacuate with her. She was a short, petite girl who wore the look of oppression like a sash, with soft electric blue eyes and pouty red lips, real jailbait. Her body left a lot to be desired, she was almost inebriated with hardly a lump where her breasts and backside should be. However, she was not the dumb blonde jailbait she was stereotyped to be. She was permanently thinking, solving puzzles, watching with a keen, intelligent eye. She had watched in horror as one of the monsters threw her man to the ground and began to tear chunks of meat and bone out of his neck with its jagged teeth, slowly severing it. She heard him gurgle her name pleadingly through the blood spewing from his mouth as she was pulled away by a guard towards 'safety'. Now she was completely alone, the only woman remaining in a group of twenty or so men. It wasn't long before she started noticing them gazing at her, whispering to one another. Guard and prisoner alike became darker, it seemed only a matter of time before the hunger overcame one or more of them and they tried to take her.

When it did happen, she decided quickly that she could no longer remain in the group. The men had become violent, irritable and used her as they saw fit; the tension, stress and horror of their new world into which they were plunged so roughly into had turned them into rapists, murderers and thieves, even those who were decent men before. She left without a word to them, quietly slipping away and charging into the new world, ready to conquer whatever it threw at her.

She left expecting scenes of carnage around every corner and she was not disappointed. Everywhere, the violence and horror was astounding. Very few Walkers remained but the parking lot outside the was dotted with piles of bodies and rubble, and what was most astounding was that within the piles of the dead occasionally there was a movement, a creature trapped trying to free itself, or perhaps gnawing on another body. When she moved onto the main road it was empty of sound and movement, so she decided to follow it. She expected to stumble across a town soon and set herself up in a cozy little shop where she could blow her brains out quietly in comfort. She expected there might be a gun store or pharmacy where she could find something to end her existence quietly, she expected that her entire family would have succumbed to the blight and she expected that she was completely alone. Her boyfriend, definitely gone, mother, gone, father, gone, sister, gone, lover, gone... She expected she couldn't possibly handle the pressure.

What she could never have expected to come driving towards her through the slowly accumulating fog was another man equally as sociopathic as she. What she could never have expected was that when he stopped and opened the truck's door for her and their eyes met, his devilish blue orbs could have stripped her immediately of pride and lured her temptingly in. He wasn't a particularly handsome man but something in the rugged way he talked, laughed and joked was enticing. Perhaps she simply needed someone to depend on for a while, she thought as they flirted and chatted. She could never have expected they would be going at it like rabbits in the back of the truck shortly later, and she could never have expected what came next as she was brought into his world. They circled a small group of survivors who the tall, rough southerner had some vendetta against and she unwittingly found herself plunged into his mean way of thinking.

She never expected, in a million years, to run across someone like Merle Dixon.


	2. Chapter One: Sleeping Dogs

**Note: Hello Readers!**

**Well, I've decided to start this Chapter at 1am, so don't mind a little bit of sleepiness if it decides to show its ugly face and tempt in the typo fairies while its at it. Muchos love to my readers! If you enjoy any of my stuff, by the way, I love to get reviews both good and constructively critical so feel free to let me know what you think! Enjoy!**

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_Chapter One: Sleeping Dogs_

_'We spent last night in a gunstore in some backwater town that Merle seemed to know his way around. Its crazy out here, no matter what we do the hordes of those things just keep coming. I can't understand how Merle stays so calm, all he wants is sex and fresh streams of violence, its as though the whole world isn't crashing and burning around him. Or perhaps its because he embraces it. Like he enjoys it. I know a sick fuck when I see one, but for now he's the only protection I have and he's damn good with a shotgun too. Come to think of it, he's pretty good at all sorts of things for a fella with one hand. Though I must say, he's one hell of a redneck, no education and no social skills at all. He's watching me write this right now, scribbling on the notepad I liberated from his truck. Fortunate that I figured out the idiot can't read, he's just staring at the words like I'm writing them in Latin._

_Anyway, we're heading to some Quarry camp to pick up his dumbass brother as soon as dawn breaks. The way he talks about him, you'd think he's looking for some ten year old, never mind a fully grown man with all kinds of survival skills. I'm hoping we find this guy; Merle finds a deeper level of peace even in the most calm moments by slaughtering Walkers so it raises the question of what he might do in a temper. Its been almost two weeks since the world went to hell, he told me last night. Everything out there that moves is dead. I haven't even seen a bird. No help is coming, not here anyway. How the hell did it all happen so fast?_

_The Diary of Sally Houton. Day Two.'_

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The baking sun had crisped and dried the mounds of earth that sat as tombs beneath the bows of a tree. The great spectacle of pine was so old that its roots laced the edges of the hastily assembled graves like embroidery, carving intricate patterns into the pale soil and sticking out of the ground like so many ghostly white fingers. At the head of each grave a small flower was placed, in the midday sun the petals were growing brown and with the slightest touch the edges would shudder and crumble into dust. Around the once tranquil campsite, dried congealed black blood was strewn like confetti in stains, focusing on the spot where the RV had previously sat and in the doorway to the Peletier's tent which itself was matted with dry blood. The rest was gone, the tents packed, the RV uprooted and not a supply to be found. All that remained was a gory scene and a car with a map taped to it.

As soon as Merle stumbled upon the camp, his cocky smile vanished. Daryl was the only thing that he could bring himself to focus on, his little brother who had remained so loyal and dependent all these years would never have left without trying to find him. The blood stains could be followed by tracking the drag marks of the damp red fluid as the dead had been tugged up a hill, spilling innards as they went. As soon as he came across the graves Merle Dixon fell to his knees and frantically screeched at what he expected was the final resting place of his last remaining tie to sanity.

"NO! No, NO."

The desperate sound echoed through the trees, reverberating towards them and ringing back throughout the valleys like an ethereal choir. With a single motion, Merle was on his stomach scrabbling through the dirt with his good hand. He didn't stop to talk, think or even take a drink until each gory white body was lying in an empty grave, bloody faces matted with thick globs of mud. None of the corpses were of any sentimental value to Merle, she could tell. Not once did he hesitate as the lifeless faces were revealed and silently brought into the blinding sun. He merely analyzed the body and moved on when he failed to find Daryl. As the last grave was dug up and the cold frail body of Amy was slowly uncovered, Merle halted and stared at his knees in confusion.

"Well, he's not here." Sally mumbled, hardly audible in contrast to the blaring scream of silence the two were engulfed by. It was so loudly and obnoxiously silent that the lack of noise felt like an iron weight had been slapped across her back and was dragging her down. She embraced the weight and slowly sank to her knees beside Merle, touching a hand to his unshaven filthy face.

She didn't expect Merle to be angry, but as he turned to look at her the rage on his face was unmistakable. It took a while for him to gather words, and when he did speak what escaped his lips was little more than a raspy gasp. The anger drained from him slowly and he was overcome with a new emotional wave, of disappointment and betrayal.

"The little son of a whore left." He mumbled, his fingers lazily running over the barrel of the gun by his side. "All this time I wanted to come back, couldn't move on without him 'n he jus' up and left. Real brotherly." He chuckled, a sadness in his face that he tried in vain to disguise. There was nothing but a vague map addressed to some 'Morgan' to guide him, it was as though Daryl had forgotten about his own brother. "You hear me? The little SON of a WHORE left me, he left me to die in that city an' now he's gone to play house with some jumped up pig and his little gang of immigrants." His voice was plainly nasty and the spite in it made the hairs on Sally's neck stand on end.

"Perhaps we should follow the map?" She offered, but her voice went unheard. Merle was trying to piece his thoughts together and that, to him, was hard work. He lurched towards Sally and roughly slapped one hand on her shoulder, pulling her towards him until she was an inch away from his face. His breath smelled of years of dental neglect and cheap whiskey, but her attention was on his eyes. She knew what he meant by the look in those expressive eyes.

"You fuckin' bet we're following that map. I have someone who owes me an apology," he turned an eye to the messy stump of hand, "and a brother to bail out." He drawled, the rough Southern accent was featureless and as far from eloquent or threatening as she could imagine but she remained respectfully alert. A smile grew on his face and before she could react he forced her head towards his, sinking his teeth into her lips as he kissed her lustily, a habit she had noticed and didn't appreciate. She slapped him away sharply with one hand as the sharp pain stabbed at her mouth, his head reeling backwards which provoked a moment of stunned silence followed by a roar of maniacal laughter. "I like a little fire in a bitch." He growled in what she could only imagine was his attempt at a sexy purr. The way his mouth gaped open as he laughed, teamed with the crazed look in his eyes frightened her, though, so she quickly took to standing and offering a hand towards his. The stump of an arm flailed uselessly as he tried to stand alone, his face still contorted in amusement.

"So, your brother abandoned you, some stranger handcuffed you to a roof and another guy-"

"Nigger." She was cut off. The comment felt like a hot poker held against her spine, it made every fiber of her body bristle, she was unused to racism especially the kind that was casually thrown into conversation like it was acceptable.

"Yes. As I was saying, another guy managed to loose the handcuff keys... Well, what I don't get is why we're going to tail these people anyway. Shouldn't we get the hell away from them?" His head shook slightly.

"You stupid? He's my bro. Aside from that one guy whose life I want to end, I couldn't give a rat's ass about any of the other sorry sons of bitches, but no matter what I'll always be there to sort 'Darlena's mess out." He pulled himself up firmly to his feet with the help of her outstretched arm, wobbled a little then regained his composure. He began to take wide, lumbering strides towards where they had parked, peeling the map from the window of the stripped red sports car as he passed. Sally hung back behind him, massaging her lip tenderly to ease the tooth marks out of the soft skin. 'Animal', she thought.

"Looks like they're headed back onto the road." He muttered casually as he examined the pictures and basic contours of the map. "I think we'll go follow them, how's that sound? We should loop around a different way and see if we can cut them off..." When he noticed the quiet between the two of them as she rubbed her lip and he rambled, he grabbed Sally firmly around the waist and clung her to his side. "How'd I manage to find the last loose whore of a woman left in this whole hell hole?" He asked as he sunk his fingertips into the soft skin of her hips, making her cringe in pain.

"M'kay Don Juan," She murmured as she wiggled free from his one-handed grasp. She snatched the map off him and quickened her pace towards the truck. Once inside, she began studying the piece of paper while Merle left to answer nature's call. She took in every detail and memorized every little feature of the map and they set off, tearing towards the highway with thoughts of a reunion and a brutal murder brimming in Merle's head, and the thought of a fresh bed and stolen supplies in Sally's... It was strange how well she found herself fitting in with Merle after just a few hours.


End file.
